Help stock the shelves of the Lehigh Community Services this Saturday by shopping at the Publix on Homestead Road North.

Lehigh Community Services Executive Director Carolyn Peplow said they are collaborating with the Harry Chapin Food Bank, United Way and Publix to host “Let’s Feed Lee,” a food drive, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29. The collaboration is taking place with the Harry Chapin Food Bank partner agencies at 35 Publixs all over Lee County on Sept. 29.

“Our pantry benefits from the food collected from this particular store,” she said.

The drive will be held at the Publix at 1328 Homestead Road North.

Participation in the food drive is easy. Individuals simply have to go in the store, purchase one or more items from a shopping list and donate them to one of the Lehigh Community Service staff, or volunteer members as they leave Publix.

Peplow said volunteers are being sought to help with the event by handing out shopping lists to Publix shoppers, as well as gathering the donations made by the patrons and boxing it up to transport back to Lehigh Community Services.

She said they will be handing out shopping lists, so individuals can pick up those supplies while shopping. She said that Publix also will have a display of those items to make it easier for the shoppers.

The shopping list includes such items as breakfast bars; canned fish or chicken; beans, dried or canned; canned vegetables; cooking oil; pasta and pasta sauce; dried milk; jelly; rice; soup, stew or ravioli.

Peplow said Let’s Feed Lee replaces the event Harry Chapin Food Bank used to hold a handful of years ago called Stuff the Bus.

With the Lehigh Community Services Food Pantry remaining busy, she said they are fortunate for their partnership with Harry Chapin Food Bank and G. Weaver Hipps Elementary School.

Peplow said the school holds a big food drive every year.

“They do a good job,” she said of the drive, which ends on Sept. 28.

According to the 2018 Map the Meal Gap study conducted by the Feeding America network of food banks, 87,840 people are food insecure in Lee County, 26,930 of whom are children.

“We are grateful for our partnership with Publix and the United Way in helping feed our neighbors in need,” Harry Chapin Food Bank President and CEO Richard LeBer said in a prepared statement. “The month of September is Hunger Action Month, and the Let’s Feed Lee food drive is the perfect way to wind up a month of raising hunger awareness.”